Gallifrey Procrastinates (No More)
by Meer-Katnip
Summary: There's no reason why the Doctor couldn't have saved Gallifrey. All it takes is a bit of ingenuity. And ginger.


**Warning: complete crack. Featuring the main cast of the Gallifrey audio series and the Nelson!ginger Doctor from _Doctor Who: The Ginger Chronicles._ If you think you've seen this before, you probably have- it was originally posted in my abandoned story collection with a few extra bits. I decided to cut it off here.**

* * *

It was possibly the worst idea that Romana had got into her head so far, but the message _had_ asked for all four of them.

"What could possibly go wrong?" she had asked, which had caused Narvin to promptly find the nearest wall and begin to bang his head against it, muttering something about 'tempting fate'. But she was President and her word was more-or-less law. And so it was that Romana, Leela, Narvin and Braxiatel took a TARDIS to a small, out-of-the-way café on the banks of the Thames in 1987, each one knowing full well that they'd probably regret doing it later. K-9 had tagged along too, for moral support.

As they approached the café, Narvin tugging irritably at the unfamiliar 'casual' clothes, Leela carefully kept a lookout for any sign that something was wrong. There wasn't, not even a little bit, which made her even more edgy. Romana had a small worried frown, and kept biting at her upper lip, and Braxiatel looked unruffled, as always.

They entered through the front doors, even though it was probably another bad idea, and hovered awkwardly around the front counter.

"Orders?" said the bored-looking waitress, snuffing out her cigarette under the tabletop and picking up a clipboard. She twirled a pen threateningly towards them.

"Er," said Romana, and became aware that a ginger woman was waving excitedly at them from across the shop, mouthing something along the lines of 'over here!' Leela sent the woman a suspicious look, and Narvin stared at the ceiling, no doubt imagining he was anywhere but where he was right then.

K-9 beeped and whirred at her heels. "Mistress?"

"Shut up, K-9," Romana hissed, annoyed, as the waitress leaned over the counter to look at the metal dog. Her forehead puckered in puzzlement, and K-9 tilted his head up to face her.

"What's that, then?" she asked, reaching down to poke him. "Some sort of remote-controlled doodad?"

Romana hurriedly kicked K-9 backwards in the direction of Braxiatel. "Something like that."

In the background, the woman was now gesturing frantically at them and making pouty faces in their direction. The waitress noticed. "She a friend of yours, then?"

Braxiatel raised an eyebrow. "Funnily enough, no. We've never met her before in our lives."

Leela was edging towards her pocket, where her knife indubitably was. Narvin grabbed her arm, and scowled deeply.

The woman threw her hands up in the air in frustration, and yelled, "Romana! For Rassillon's sake, just _get over here!_ "

Romana froze, and opened her mouth to say something, but realized she couldn't think of anything to say. Braxiatel nudged her arm. "Well, then."

"Looks like _she_ knows _you,_ " added the waitress rather unnecessarily. Romana shepherded Leela, Narvin, and K-9 towards the table, while Braxiatel wandered over in a manner that suggested that he wasn't at all bothered by the proceedings.

"Good, you're all here!" exclaimed the woman, who had been tying her long hair back in a ponytail. She was dressed in a neat blue skirt and white blouse, and gave the appearance of being completely calm at all times, no matter the situation. "I was worried that my impassioned message wouldn't convince you."

"As I recall," said Narvin sourly. "Your message said, and I quote, ' _big trouble coming, I need help from my BFFs, love, a friend XOXOXOX_ ' and the time-space co-ordinates of this place. That isn't what I would call 'impassioned'. The word 'desperate' comes to mind."

The woman frowned. "Yes, well. I may or may not have been slightly drunk when I got the idea."

"Who are you?" Leela asked bluntly, sitting down on the nearest chair. "You are a Time Lord, that I can tell, but not one that I have seen in the Capitol."

The woman grinned widely, and spread her arms out. "You don't recognize me? I mean, the body is rather different, but _still_ -"

K-9 chose that moment to interject. "Biodata extract suggests that this person is the Doctor-Master."

"Doctor- _Mistress_ , if you must," the woman replied, and reached down to ruffle the robot's ears. "Good dog, K-9!"

Romana and Leela's jaws simultaneously dropped, and Narvin began to mutter something under his breath that sounded halfway between a curse and a prayer. Braxiatel simply sighed wearily. "Well," he said. "It looks as if I have a sister now."

"Don't go thinking that you have to scare away any boys that look as if they're going to chat me up," said the Doctor mildly. "I think we're both a bit too old for that."

"You are lying," said Leela, recovering from the initial shock. "The Doctor is… well…"

"Male?" she suggested.

"Yes, that."

"Times and people change, Leela. Speaking of which- Romana, what have you _done_ with your hair?"

"I cut it," said Romana severely. "I could ask you the same question. Is it- ginger?"

"Yep," said the Doctor proudly, patting it a bit. "Which, coincidentally, is how I came up with this amazing plan that has no way of working. Last night, my friends possibly accidentally spiked my tea with ginger and I'm rather afraid that I went a bit crazy. "

"You called us to meet you," said Narvin disbelievingly. "because you had an LSD trip."

The Doctor shushed him. "Just listen. You see, insanity does happen to be the root of most genius ideas, and when I was completely and utterly out of my mind, I said to myself, Doctor, shouldn't there be a way for you to prevent the destruction of Gallifrey without unravelling the Web of Time? And I replied to myself, yes Doctor, there probably is, if you just-"

" _The destruction of Gallifrey?_ " everyone chorused with varying tones of emphasis and outrage. The Doctor looked slightly embarrassed.

"Oops," she said. "Did I forget to mention that?"

Romana considered finding something fluffy to kick, but decided against it. "Yes, I rather think you did."

The Doctor waved a dismissive hand. "At my current point in time, Gallifrey has been destroyed in the biggest Time War to ever hit history, and all of you are dead. But don't worry about that, I have an excellent plan- sorry, I think you all need drinks, you're all looking a bit pale."

"Yes," said Braxiatel. "I think we do."

"And add extra ginger to mine," put in Romana, resting her head in her hands. "I think I'm going to need it."

* * *

"And so," continued the Doctor happily after they'd all indulged in several large and possibly illegal drinks. "I came up with an _excellent_ plan to save your- sorry, _our_ world from being destroyed- and I'm sure once you've heard it you'll appreciate all of the fine nuances."

Leela blinked a bit, and brought her attention back to the small gathering. "I now believe it is really you."

"You do?" the Doctor looked pleased. "Oh, good."

"You have now been speaking for nearly an hour," Leela continued. "And you have not gotten any nearer to the point. Your words are pointless rambling."

The ginger Time Lady looked distinctly less pleased. "Oh."

Leela smiled. "It is good to see you again. I have missed you." And to everyone else's great surprise, she reached across the table, and swept the other woman into a hug.

There was an awkward silence as she withdrew, broken only by Narvin clearing his throat loudly. "Now that we've got the public displays of affection over and done with, could we please focus on the fact that Gallifrey might be _destroyed_ if we don't act?"

"Yes, how did it happen, anyway?" asked Romana, turning to the Doctor with an odd quirk of her eyebrow. "You weren't exactly clear on that, despite the detail you just described the destruction itself with."

The Doctor coughed rather violently, and said something under her breath. Braxiatel leaned in. "What was that?"

She muttered it again, loud enough for everyone at the table to hear.

"You did _what?!_ " yelled Braxiatel, recoiling from the table with wide eyes.

"It was an _accident,_ " she said, sounding like a petulant little girl. "I really didn't mean to-"

"So you 'accidentally' managed to steal the most destructive weapon that the Time Lords have ever managed to create," summarized Narvin. "And then you proceeded to 'accidentally' set it off, thus causing the utter decimation of Gallifrey."

The Doctor folded her arms; she didn't like to be caught out on this sort of thing. "It should probably be noted that I also destroyed all of the Daleks in the process."

Leela perked up. "All of them?"

"Well," said the Doctor. "Most of them. Some of them managed to escape, and some of them were hiding, and don't even get me _started_ on the one I found hiding in the TARDIS last week…" She paused for a moment, remembering. "Don't worry; we took care of that one."

Romana rubbed her forehead, where a headache was quickly forming. "So you destroyed Gallifrey to get rid of the Daleks."

"Yep."

"Those would be the same Daleks that somehow managed to get half of their number out of the resulting explosion and are still terrorizing the universe anyway."

The Doctor frowned. "Well, at least I _did_ something. As I recall, most of the Time Lords were still dithering about whether killing Daleks would be _ethical_ when I did it. And none of you were much help- although that hasn't happened to you yet, so I should probably shut up now, shouldn't I?"

"Yes," said Braxiatel, his voice muffled by his hands which were now covering his face. "Yes, you probably should."

"You see, Leela," Romana said, turning to the only human at the table. " _This_ is exactly why I'm President and the Doctor is not."

Leela nodded sagely.

"I'm probably going to really, _really_ regret asking this," Narvin said. "But someone has to do it. You said you had a plan that would save us. What is it and how can we help?"

The Doctor beamed. "I knew I could count on you!"

"Don't get hopeful," said Romana. "We haven't agreed to anything yet."

"Fair enough," said the Doctor. "Right, then. The primary starting points for the Time War are all very well defined, although no one could see them until afterwards. I've listed them all and if we can change things just a little bit for all of them, then the War will never have happened. I could probably fix them all on my own, but some of them only happened on Gallifrey, and I can't get back; it's timelocked." She paused, and a smile spread across her face. "Plus, one of you is the Co-ordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency, and if there's one thing we need to do here, it's intervene." She glanced around expectantly at everyone. "Well?"

There was a long silence.

"Accumulated data suggests 43% chance of success," chipped in K-9, bumping the table with his head.

"Shut up, K-9," said Romana automatically. She paused to scratch her neck. "All my instincts are telling me that this is a really bad idea, but-"

"-but it is the only plan we've got," Leela completed. "I think we should listen to the Doctor."

"No surprise there," Narvin muttered. Leela whacked him with a handy newspaper.

"I am only pointing out that none of us want the destruction of our home planet. And her plan is the only way which we know of that will save it."

"She does have a point," said Braxiatel, examining his nails. "May we see the list?"

The Doctor reached into the black satchel that was looped over the back of her chair, and removed a large old-fashioned looking scroll. "Sure."

Narvin took it and unrolled it. "This is madness."

"This is progress," corrected the Doctor cheerfully. "Slight difference there."

"But only very slight," added Braxiatel dryly, leaning over to look at the lines of handwritten co-ordinates and notes. "Are you quite sure about these?"

"I double, triple, and _quadruple_ checked them," she confirmed. "They're all correct. Six points in the primary timeline in total. I think we should be able to sort them out in a couple of days."

"Thank you for telling us this," said Romana crisply. "We'll take care of it, of course; I can delegate some of the tasks to the CIA and-" Her brain caught up with her mouth. "-I'm sorry, did you say _we?_ "

"Uh, yes," the Doctor replied, looking delightfully unapologetic. "Did I mention that I might have invited a few of my friends to help?"

"This is dangerously close to becoming out of hand," muttered Narvin. "How many?"

The Doctor began to count on her fingers, then ran out and began to take off her shoes.

"Never mind," Romana sighed. "Let's just get this over and done with. Take us to meet them."

The Doctor sprung to her feet in one smooth movement, and offered Leela a hand up for no apparent reason. "The TARDIS is parked just around the corner."

"Oh good," said Romana mildly. "Leela and I will have a proper chance to meet our replacements. I've been rather looking forward to this, actually."

"This was such a bad idea," said Narvin, sotto voice, but allowed himself to be dragged off.

Braxiatel stood in the café, with K9 by his side, watching them go.

"We're all doomed," he muttered.

"Affirmative."

"Shut up, K-9."

* * *

 **The End**


End file.
